Did You Know?
May 25, 2010"What flows through the brush is life, how it manifests on the canvas is Being." ~Words on the wall of the studio I'm renting this summer
It's the craziest thing, I tell ya, but you actually need to put your battery in the camera in order to take pictures! You can't just leave your battery at home!
You can thank me later, as I know I just dispensed what is perhaps the most extraordinary wisdom that has ever shone its bright golden rays upon your head. No, I don't actually have a PhD, and I know right now you probably find that hard to believe. (I get that all the time.)
So, upon discovery of said missing battery, it immediately became a Hipstamatic day today. This was the official First Day in the Studio, and I am still slightly in awe over how quickly this new routine has settled into my skin. (We'll see how I feel a few weeks from now when I hit my first wall.) I am sub-letting a friend's art studio (Gus Harper – who will be teaching at the September SAW – yeah!) for most of the summer, and this week was when everything started. Yesterday turned out to be too crazy, thanks to two big distractions that I let pull me here and there (totally worth it), but today I knew I had to get myself in there and get to work.
Over the past few weeks, as this time was drawing near, I was beginning to feel a slight burst of anxiety – Which supplies should I take? What if I don't like leaving my house to do my work? How should I begin? With a plan? Without? And then it hit me – just show up. So I grabbed some panels-in-the-works, most of my paints and brushes, a few pencils, rags and an apron, and out the door I went this morning. I arrived at the studio, chatted with Gus for a few minutes and then within what felt like a millisecond I was at an easel working on a piece. And I continued to work on multiple pieces for the next four hours or so, and those hours melted away in that magical way that happens when I'm lost in the creative process.
And the best part: I didn't even have to clean up my mess when I was done, a task I always feel compelled to do in my studio here at home. When I was getting ready to leave, I asked Gus for a broom to sweep up a scattered pile of paper I had ripped and sanded off of a collage piece, and his response was, "Why? It's an art studio." And I just looked at him, dumbfounded, and said, "But it's what I always do!"
Not today. That pile is still there – right now! I just walked out the door and left it. I think I might have skipped down the street to my car.
I have also been putting a great deal of pressure on myself to "make the most" of having this space for this short time, feeling like if I don't put in a certain number of hours each day or week then I might as well not do it. But here I am, after just one day, and I get it. I understand what this space is about. It is about putting myself in a room with my art supplies and nothing else. No laptop. No laundry. No dishes to wash. Yes, I have my iPhone, but it's not there to call people and chat. It's a Just in Case phone, nothing more.
Realistically, I won't be able to put in solid eight-hour days five days a week in this studio. But I will be able to accomplish more in four hours there than eight hours at home. I know for a fact that if I had not gone to the studio today – if I never rented the space in the first place and continued to do everything from home – none of the artistic work I got done today would have happened. It would have been computer work, errands, and yes, laundry. The day would have gotten away, every paintbrush untouched.
I'll be back at the easel tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that. Next week I'll go to SAW, and when I return it's back in the studio every day through early August (OK, almost every day), where time will fall through my fingers like sand – soft, glittering and silent.
Today I showed up at my photoshoot all ready to rock and roll and wouldn’t ya know… no battery in the camera. Yep. True story. I had to send the nanny home to get it. I take her with me to watch my baby while I did head shots.
Sigh, it was a long day
Love your work, found you in Artful Blogging!
So excited for you! I love Gus’s attitude… it’s an ART STUDIO… makes me feel better about the (messy) state of my home studio. At least it’s in the back of the house and I can close the door!
Can’t wait to see all of the magic that you make in your summer studio hours!
xo & buckets of belief in you,
Carmen
just show up.
awesome
(and isn’t it really the only thing we ever need to do?)
So very jealous of you, but also happy for you. Jealous because my non-driving kid just returned home for the summer, and my working time is disappearing into driving her around. Happy for you, because you get to do the work. And then happy for the rest of us who will get to see your work! Have fun!
I’ve had a few PhD moments myself. When you cook food it gets really hot! Plugging things in that require electricity makes them work a lot better. And you know what’s really interesting? If you put acutal paper into a printer then it will print what’s on your computer screen! Isn’t that a kick?
Your best advice from this post? Just show up. So easy to overlook that one and so important. Just show up. One could apply that to almost anything in life. Thanks for the reminder. And enjoy your self-cleaning studio! Yay!
Showing up is all we can expect of ourselves on any given day. I’m glad to hear that a change of venue and losing the trappings of your home are good for the creative process!
right on!
Yay! YAY! YAY!!!
The colors look like the glass factory on the side of the road near Amman. Che bello!
Have a fabulous time at SAW. JEALOUS.
I am SOOOOO thrilled for you….and I knew it, I knew once you got there it’d all flow….cuz you’re you.
I’m so excited for your studio space!!!
Can’t wait to see what develops.
Sounds like you’ve learned to appreciate the studio by using it as it works best. Have a wonderful time letting the time fly by!
love the piece on the easel!
It looks and sounds like a gift to yourself and your art. You deserve it! xo
There are a few things I really love about this post.
1) You made me laugh with your comments about the PhD. I could just hear that entire paragraph coming out of your mouth, all tongue-in-cheek and everything. Love it.
2) I like that image of time melting away as you stand in front of your easel and paint. How everything else gets lost and fades away because you are so completely in the moment. I’d love to live that way — completely in the moment — more often.
Also, you are so gentle with yourself in this post! Here’s what I mean.
First there was the realization through the bout of anxiety that the most important thing was just to show up. That is enough, and that is the point. I love that you had that realization.
And then giving yourself permission to leave that pile of shavings on the floor — that “it’s still there right now!!” made me laugh — because you can. Because it’s okay. Because you’re not required to clean up every mess.
And then the realization that four-hour days a few days a week are enough. They don’t have to be full-time weeks. But they’re important because the work done there would not be done elsewhere.
I guess in all of this, I’m just noticing a gentleness with yourself that seems good and loving and right. I’m glad you’ve found it.
xoxo,
Christianne